8. Lessons from
the Bhagavad Gita
Bhakthi or devotion is the only path for reaching the Divine
destination. Bhakthi is the only panacea for all the ills of this world.
Bhakthi is the only method for making you realise the truth. I believe
that there will be scarcely any Indian who has not read through the
text of the Bhagavad Gita; that there would be none who has not
heard and is not aware of the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita
means “The Song of God,” words that have come to us as His
flowers, as His prasad. Vyasa has woven these flowers, the words of
God, into a beautiful garland and has gifted it to us.
The Bhagavad Gita consists essentially of three parts,
namely, Karma Khanda, Upasana Khanda and Jnana Khanda.
These are also being referred to as the six-chapter contents in each
case. Through these three parts, the Bhagavad Gita has been teaching us various spiritual aspects, such as bhakthi or devotion, jnana or
knowledge and yoga or meditation, and so on and so forth. But the
Bhagavad Gita, in addition to these, has really also given us the
great saying, “THATH THWAM ASI” meaning “That Thou Art”.
This is the essence or the keynote of the Bhagavad Gita. The first
six chapters teach us about the jiva or soul that resides in this body
and, through that, the nature of jiva. The next six chapters, while
teaching us the path of bhakthi, also show us the nature and content
of what we call Thath or “THAT”. The last six chapters, while giving us the content and the meaning of the third word Asi also tell us
about how to realise the identity of the self, the Jivatma, with
“THAT” the Paramatma and also teach us to give up things, how
to sacrifice and reach Moksha or liberation. If we study the Bhagavad Gita in the proper way and enquire into its contents, we will
understand the true nature of the saying “THATH THWAM ASI.”
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This morning how the concept of surrender or saranagathi
has been described in the Bhagavad Gita has been conveyed to you.
It appears to me that the real meaning of the word saranagathi or
surrender has not been properly understood. Our elders, by the
study of many scriptures and texts, have conveyed to us the meaning. Despite this, we get the impression that the word surrender
means putting at the disposal of God our body, our mind, all our
powers and all that we have. We take it that “placing these before
God” is the true meaning of the word surrender. This is not the correct and proper meaning of the word. Our body is not in our control
at all. Our body, under some circumstances, is posing to us several
problems. Under such circumstances, when the body is not under
our control, it is not understandable how we can say that we will take
such a body and surrender it to God.
When we look at the mind, it is even worse. It leads us to
many distorted meanings. While we are not only not in control of
our mind even for one moment, we are even slaves to our mind and
we foolishly enjoy the mind’s wanderings. Under such circumstances, to say that you are surrendering your mind to God is something quite un-understandable. When you have to struggle so much
to control your own mind, even for a short while; and when your attempts in this direction are often futile, to take such a mind and put it
at the feet of God and say that, “I am surrendering my mind to
you,” seems to me to be ridiculous. Let us take the case of your
various organs. When the situation is that the mind, which is the
ruler, which is the controller of all your organs, is in such a condition, what is the point in talking about the organs and surrendering
all your organs to God.
So, when you say that you are surrendering to God your
thought, your word, your deed, it is simply a kind of trivial satisfaction to yourself. This cannot represent the truth and the meaning of
the word surrender. God also never wants you to surrender, and
hand over to him, everything that you own. In fact, God has never
asked for such a thing. If you make a proper attempt to understand
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the true meaning of the word saranagathi or surrender, you will understand that saranagathi really relates to another aspect and it
should be interpreted in the background and context of Divinity
only. Only when you accept and when you believe that the Divine is
present in every human being and in every living thing, that Divinity
is omnipresent can you understand the meaning of surrendering in
thought, word, and deed and you will also become one with God.
There is some justification for your talking of saranagathi or surrender when you are in full control of your mind, your words and
your body. As soon as you are able to recognise the aspects of the
omnipresence and the omnipotence of God, the feeling of ego, the
feeling that there is an “I”, which is a distinct thing, will disappear.
In other words, when we try to understand the meaning of
the word saranagathi or surrender, you will note that, in the beginning, Arjuna started asking questions of Lord Krishna, thinking that
he is using his own intelligence, his own capacity of enquiry and his
own ability of distinguishing right from wrong. He is thinking that
he is using his own strength. Because he relied heavily upon his own
powers and thought that his own powers were capable of excelling
and exceeding God’s powers, he landed himself into a difficulty and
was not in a position to decide what he should do and what he
should not do. As soon as Arjuna found it not possible to go ahead
or even to go back; in fact, when all his actions came to a stop, then
he turned to Lord Krishna and said: “I will take your orders, I am
not in a position to decide what I should do. I am ready to obey you
and carry out whatever you want me to do and I will do so with my
full heart.” Thus he surrendered his thought, word, action, and all,
entirely to God. Such surrender is the lesson of the Bhagavad Gita.
It is not correct to say that even this is complete surrender. A
situation has arisen when he is ready to take whatever order God
gives and obey it implicitly. In this situation, the position is that God
gives orders and another individual is willing to execute them. In
other words, there is a duality here, in that the one who gives the order is God and the one who wishes to execute them is man. As long
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as there is this distinction in the mind of the individual, between God
on the one hand and “I” of the individual on the other hand, this
cannot be accepted as complete surrender. There is bliss and happiness in unity. There is no bliss and happiness in duality. So when
you are looking at the word surrender or saranagathi, in common
parlance, in the ordinary way of doing routine things and interpret it
by telling yourself that God has given you the order, God has told
you what to do and you will accept that and will follow that, this
meaning of surrender is right only in a limited sense.
There is one other thing which we have to recognise and take
note of. We know that Krishna and Arjuna were living together for
well over eighty years, were meeting each other very often and talking to each other like friends. But at no time in those eighty odd
years did Lord Krishna ever try to teach anything of the Bhagavad
Gita to Arjuna. It was only after eighty years of their living together
and that, too, in the battlefield, and that again under some special circumstances, that the Lord wanted to give him the contents of the
Bhagavad Gita and give Arjuna a position of authority and competence from where he could do something. We have to enquire into
the meaning of all these things. In the Bhagavad Gita, He has also
taught that we have to recognise what is called adhikara, or worthy
of being entrusted with a task. He has also taught us that unless one
acquires the qualification, merit and worth, there is no point in
teaching the Bhagavad Gita to him. Conveying the contents of the
Gita to someone who does not deserve it and who has not yet acquired that merit has no meaning. We know that it is only the hungry man who has the right to ask for food. It is only the man who
has the money that has the right to spend that money. It is only the
man that is poor and needy and deserving of charity, that is to be
given such help. In this way, each individual gets the right to do
something. The recognition of this right or qualification, before action is initiated, is an aspect which is contained in the Bhagavad
Gita. The Lord has shown in the Gita that you could preach only
after recognising the merit or qualification and worthiness of the re-
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cipient. It is explicit that there is no point in teaching such a good
thing to one who has no belief. You must see whether he has faith
and belief or not. You must also see that the recipient has fear of sin
and reverence for God. Unless he has these qualities, the recipient
has no right to receive the good and great teaching that is contained
in the Bhagavad Gita. Not only that, your teaching may become irrelevant if you go and teach one who has not got these qualities.
It is God’s word that if you have devotion to God, He will
look after all your future. He will look after all the welfare that is due
to you. So declared the Lord in the Gita. But when would this be?
He said that this would be done provided the devotee spends all his
time in the thought of God, provided he accepts God to be all pervading and as present in every being. The Lord never said that He
will look after the welfare of a devotee all the time, in spite of the
devotee spending only a little while, now and then, in thought of God
and even if he goes on doing all kinds of evil and harmful things in
the name of God. There are three things which one should keep in
mind, namely, “I will not think of anything else except God; I will
not do anything else without the permission of God and I will have
my attention completely fixed in God.” It is only when you accept
and put into practice these three things, that the Lord will look after
your welfare. Today, we are not bothering about the injunctions
which God has given us; but instead, we are arguing with God and
asking Him why He is not looking after our welfare and our safety.
By simply reading and repeating the text of the Bhagavad Gita, by
merely thinking about the contents of the text, we are not going to
get any benefit out of it. It is only by understanding the meaning of
the text, by ruminating over the meaning in your mind and digesting
it completely and making it part and parcel of your life, can you get
the benefit out of it.
You have been told about the path of monkey and the path of
cat. The relationship between the baby monkey and its mother monkey is such that no matter where the mother goes, no matter even if
the mother is jumping hither and thither, the baby holds fast and
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clings safely to the mother, going wherever the mother goes. The
child has implicit faith in the mother. In this way, just like the young
monkey clinging to the mother under all conditions and under all
circumstances, we should attach ourselves to God under all conditions and under all circumstances. That is the kind of behaviour we
should accept. In this, there is no responsibility of any kind on the
part of the mother monkey. The entire responsibility for its conduct
rests on the young one. On the other hand, when we come to see the
life of a cat and the kitten, the mother cat takes the entire responsibility for taking the kitten from place to place and looking after it. This
was explained to you with a view to convey to you the meaning of
saranagathi. There is a significance here, which we can see; that if
you stay where you are, then God Himself will take the responsibility of looking after you.
While the two paths, the path that has been described in the
context of a monkey and the path that has been described in the
context of a cat, seem to be all right in common parlance and so far
as ordinary persons are concerned in their daily life, they are not so
in the case of a person who is devoted and who wants to know the
real inner meaning of Atma or the Soul. Such a person will have to
find a path which is different from these two and superior to these
two.
To give you the meaning and the character of this devotion,
Vivekananda had a good example. Every person wants and desires
that he should get moksha or liberation, that he should attain that
place of moksha. We may say that liberation is synonymous with
freedom. When we desire freedom, it implies that at the moment we
are in some kind of bondage. What is that bondage? The bondage is
in our own family, in our own home, in which we are tied up and
entangled. Your own affection for your people is the bondage. That
is the chain which has bound you. This is what you may call affection with some kind of an attachment. When you are tied up with the
chain, the chain of affection and attachment to the family, there are
two ways by which you can free yourself from this chain. One way
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is to get the strength by which to break the chain. There is a second
way and that is to make yourself tiny, smaller and smaller so that
you can just slip and get out of the chain which is binding you.
With the exception of these two alternatives, if you want to
reach freedom and if you want to get out of the chain, there is no
way of doing it. These two can be described as bhakthi, or the devotional path, and jnana, or the path of knowledge. Bhakthi or devotion
means you recognise that there is a master, that you have to put
yourself in a humble position and be subservient to the master. You
also recognise that your conduct should be such that you please Him
and get His grace. This is the procedure for bhakthi. This is referred
to as an attitude of daasoham, or behaviour that, by implication, proclaims, “I am your servant.” When you are bound by a chain,
within that chain if you can tell yourself daasoham, daasoham, that
means you are humble, you are developing humility, your ego is becoming less and less. It shrinks you so much as your humility
grows that you can slip and get out of the chain. The other path,
which is the path of jnana, is the way of getting out of the chain by
telling yourself Shivoham, Shivoham; I am Siva, I am Siva —that
means you are expanding, becoming bigger, finally you become so
big that you can break the chain and get out. So, to break the chain
and free yourself, one is the path of jnana and the other is the path
of bhakthi.
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